BlackRock Says AI’s Potential to Drive Crypto Demand Is ‘Underappreciated’

AI drive crypto demand — BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has published research arguing that the potential for artificial intelligence to drive demand for digital assets is currently underappreciated by the market.

In a paper titled “The Machine-Native Economy,” the firm’s analysts stated that the rise of AI agents and machine-to-machine payments will increase demand for programmable payment infrastructure like blockchains, stablecoins, and other on-chain assets. They see stablecoins as particularly well-suited for high-frequency, low-value transactions between autonomous systems.

BlackRock also identified a second major opportunity in the compute market, where the processing power needed for AI could be tokenized. Claims on computing capacity could be represented as digital tokens, traded, and used as collateral, creating a new market for the crypto ecosystem.

“This relationship remains underappreciated and could expand the role of digital assets as core infrastructure for an increasingly autonomous digital economy,” the authors wrote. The research echoes arguments from crypto industry leaders like Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who has stated that AI agents will need programmable money, making crypto more important.